On Thursday November 10, Furthur, featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, lit up Madison Square Garden for thousands of dancing fans. Lesh and Weir, who are founding members of legendary jam band the Grateful Dead, formed Furthur in 2009 with an all star line-up including Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane of RatDog fame, John Kadlecick of the well known Grateful Dead cover band Dark Star Orchestra, Sunshine Becker; a noted acapella vocalist for SoVoSo, and Jeff Pehrson of Box Set. Furthur is the most complete incarnation of the Grateful Dead touring today.
Furthur is named in homage of the bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster’s, a troupe of peace loving hippies responsible for administering the notorious acid tests of the 1960s. The name is still relevant today as the audience, from budding teenagers to aging folks that grew with the band, openly shared their colorful tabs of blotter paper and hand rolled joints in hopes of taking their experiences one step Furthur. The comfort and ease of drugs being passed around made it hard to understand what we were doing was illegal. The wharf rats, a term used for sober dead heads, say the music alone is more powerful than any drug.
“The Dead have always made music that catered directly to the collective unconscious,” explains Mark Grussel, an enthusiastic Deadhead and owner of Love Bites, a café in Saugerties, New York. “The songs were left with all these holes that are constantly changing from night to night based on the unique atmosphere at each show.”
With blotter on his tongue, at the point of no return, Grussel shares his hopes and expectations before the concert, “Sugar Magnolia would make my night!” Grussel carries on comparing every rendition of Sugar Magnolia he has seen live since 1972. “In Boston 1974 one night they opened with Sugar Magnolia but drifted out before the climax, then two days later in Syracuse they snuck it back in to end the night! The closure was incredible!”
Thursday night at the Garden was Grussel’s thirty-fifth Grateful Dead show, and his fifth time seeing them at the Garden. “MSG is Lesh’ favorite venue so you can always expect a good show!” According to Grussel not much has changed. “There are new faces, new places, but no matter where you are the message is always the same. Every show is so full of love, and appreciation. The feeling is incredibly overwhelming.”
Grussel’s excitement for the Grateful Dead is common among Deadheads. Deadhead is a term used to describe a hardcore fan of the Grateful Dead. In the 1970s a community developed among fans travelling with the band. Thousands of fans have travelled with the Grateful Dead from city to city. The community grew so large it even established its own economic system, influencing such books as Barry Barnes’ “Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead: The Ten Most Innovative Lessons from a Long, Strange Trip.”
As we scuttled into MSG to find our seats we made several stops to reunite with friends from past shows. Once again Deadheads share, with fantastically vibrant imagery, their favorite memories from their long trip with the band. “I feel like I never left this place,” one Deadhead says as he embraces another.
That night at the Garden, Furthur played songs that have remained fundamentally unchanged since the 1960s including “Scarlet Begonias,” “St. Stephen,” and “The Other One.” Grussel reflected on the show and its lasting affects saying, “you don’t just go home and get on with your life. All that love stays with you, it calms you, and you take some of that and pass it on and wait patiently for the next fill up.”